Thursday, October 13, 2016

Vindictive Trump Nullifies His Own Arguments

For the better part of a year, the argument from Trump supporters to GOP Trump skeptics was that Trump will appoint better judges, and at least enact some Republican policy goals, while Hillary Clinton would enact none of them. And for all of Trump’s personal flaws, this was more or less logical; select the option of half a loaf instead of no loaf, or just a few crumbs.

But this assumed Trump would have a Republican House and at least a closely-held Senate to confirm those judges and offer him good legislation.

The argument doesn’t work when Trump decides to attack other Republican officeholders for daring to criticize his infamous comments.

Mike Pence and Melania Trump issued statements declaring Trump’s comments and behavior unacceptable. Are they “self-righteous hypocrites”, too? In the mind of Trump, every lawmaker distancing themselves from him is the real villain in this story, not him. And rather than show contrition and do anything to salvage a campaign that is trailing, he’s decided the most important thing to do right now is to lash out at Republicans who no longer are willing to stand with him.

If Trump spends the last month of this election lashing out at Republicans who refuse to stand with him anymore, he’s effectively conceding the election. The whole “you have to stand with him, he’s a winner” argument becomes nonsensical, because he’s not winning and shows no sign of being able to turn it around. And there’s no point in standing by the guy because he’ll allegedly appoint better judges if he’s attacking the Republican senators he needs to confirm those better judges.